Lesotho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F wUfwFiNXns

Fiji Boat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6 Vt-3FTTQAc

The story I am about to tell you is one of my favorites. There was a small school up in the mountain regions of the main Island in Fiji. I heard it was struggling financially and a decision was being made to possibly shut it down. This is the only primary school in the area, so kids as young as 6 would have to leave home and live in a far away boarding school to get an education. As it was, about 15 of the 65 children were living at the school during the week because they live to far from the school to commute each day. Some of the other kids have to swim the river each day to get to school.

I got up early one morning and drove way up into the mountains eventually reaching the end of the road. I then had to swim across a river and walk the rest of the way up to the school. When I got there I found one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. The school had hundreds of acres of flat fertile farmland along the river. The teachers and children were only able to farm a few acres, as they had to do it by hand with sharpened sticks. This was the only means by which the school had been surviving over the years. That night I went out to look up at the stars and the Milky Way was so bright it felt like I could just reach up and touch them, I felt like I was at Disneyland.

They had no running water so they used the river water, which is a 1/4 mile walk. This lead to outbreaks of dysentery and other problems, especially during the rainy season, when the water was muddy. There was no electricity, as their Lister generator broke down in the early 1970s and they could never afford to fix it. I spoke with the principle and he explained to me the desperate situation the school was in. He explained that there was a Non profit group from the U.S. that would match funds for any village or school that was trying to get a clean water system installed. Well when I was leaving I thought to myself, I‘m on my way to the airport so why not give him the $160 Fijian I have in my pocket and he can put it towards the $930 he needs to get the non profit group to fund the rest of his water line. I waited till the last minute and then I reached into my pocket and gave him the money, then I headed to the airport.

The following year I returned to this little school to deliver some of the supplies we had just shipped over. When the principle saw me coming up from the river he ran and hugged me and said come, come see what we have done. I followed him behind the school and there stood a new water pipe sticking out of the ground. He reached over and turned it on and out flowed beautiful cool clean water, from a spring 3 miles away. When they put the water line in, they ran it through two other villages so they could have water to. I could not believe my eyes they had running water but how? I turned and said were did you get all the money from, he looked at me puzzled and said “from you”. I thought for a second and said I didn’t give you $930, he said no you gave me $960. I used $30 to buy a bus ticket to Suva and back and $930 for our half of the project.

I stood there thinking for a moment this can’t be true, then I realized something strange but wonderful had happened. So I said, I don’t think it was from me, I think someone bigger than you and I, touched that money as it went from my hand to yours. He smiled and said, I think your right:)

This is just one of the amazing things that has happened in my life that feeds my faith and optimism. I believe that anything you set out to do in life that is to help others that are truly in need, will work out. This is why I believe so strongly that even greater things are going to happen here, if we stay focused on the needs of other and not of ourselves.

I took a deep breath and said, now that you have running water what’s needed next, he looked at me and said quietly it would be nice to have flush toilets for the children, I said I will see what I can do.

A few months later I returned to Fiji with my whole family this time with 40,000 lbs of stuff and in there was 6 toilets 2 sinks and all the material to build a washroom for them and lots of other stuff.

The video starts were Jackie and the kids and I plus Canadian friends of ours are crossing the river in the middle of the night by horseback. Needless to say I was not too popular that night amongst the white people :):):)

It took us two days to bring everything across the river by bamboo raft and on up to the school. The horse we were using to help pull the raft quit on us in the middle of the second day, he just bolted and broke the rope tied to his tail. I know I have already been reprimanded for not making sure the horse was treated better and I promise not to let it happen again :)

As we were taking everything across the river, I started thinking about a better way to do it. You see I am actually lazy at heart, so I am always trying to find an easier way. I decided to buy a boat for them. I knew that it should not have a motor, due to the price and difficulty of getting gas and because sticks in the river would break the propeller, so I needed to come up with a way of using the river current to propel the boat from one side to the other. I decided that I would take a 1000 ft steel cable and I would attach it between two big mango trees on each side of the river, then I would attach a set of large roller bearings on the main cable that would roll back and forth across the river, then I would take two smaller cables and attach the shorter one to the front of the boat and the longer one to the rear. The boat would sit at a 75-degree angle to the flow of the water causing it to glide across the river. I told the chief of the village what I was going to do and he laugh and shook his head.

We came back a week later and installed the whole thing, As I got ready to try the boat out for the first time I noticed the chief sitting down on the river bank with long bamboo poles, I said what are they for, He laughed and said in Fijian, When Noah’s boat doesn’t go across the river he can use one of my Bamboo poles to push it across. I laughed but I was thinking, I sure hope this works or I’ll be known as Mr. Noah from now on.

Well as you will see in the video it worked and now the children can get to school safely even when the river is flooded. The school with its diesel Kubota tractor I bought them and all the villagers who live in the other two villages can get there produce to market now. They told me that a few days later some government officials came up and took notes on how to build the same thing for other villages throughout the islands.

Since this was done the school has gone from 65 kids to 200 and the financial problems are gone. They have been making so much money that they have been able to lower their tuition and send excess funds to other schools that are still struggling.

I want each and everyone of you to see that when you decide to step out and help, it does work, even if you think it’s small, do it anyway, you never know how far $160 will go:)

Thanks again

Ray

Swaziland water tank

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=GL iUwDwraLA

Namatakula

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u y61miKL4Xw

This story is about how important it is to listening and not miss the opportunity when you are impressed to do something good for someone.

I had just shipped a container to Fiji and flew over to clear customs and distribute the items through out the Islands.

Early one morning I was getting ready to go to the airport to pick up a good friend of mine who was flying in from Canada for a vacation. I hopped into my Pajero truck, it’s like a Toyota land cruiser, and set off down the Queen’s road for a beautiful 3-hour drive around the island along the ocean.

As I left the house I drove past the school where the container was sitting and I was impressed to stop and load stuff into the truck. At first I thought, there is no reason to take anything with me, I was just going to the airport and back and there was no particular place that I new of to drop off any supplies. But the thought persisted and persisted so I turned around and loaded 8 one hundred lb bails of clothes, 3 of women’s, 2 men’s, 2 children’s and 1 infant’s plus 4 boxes of nails and some children’s story books.

As I continued driving down the road I started thinking, what am I going to do with this, I have to find someplace to drop it off or I won’t be able to fit my friend in when I get to the airport. The vehicle was so full, I even had clothes on the passenger’s front seat. Well, about an hour later I started to worry about where to leave this stuff, as it was only 5am. Now I’m starting to think I am a little cracked in the head.

Just then, I rounded a corner in the road and started to drive into a beautiful little village along the ocean, called Namatakula. As I slowed down, I looked over to my right and saw a small Catholic school with a group of women and children sitting outside. I drove passed and then I heard what I thought was an audible voice, say “the clothes are for those women”. I shook my head but kept driving, then I heard it again, “the clothes are for those women” this time I slowed down even more but I still kept going. By now I was starting to leave the village. I continued to drive really slow as I was thinking about those women, wondering how I would explain this to them, then I heard it again, “the clothes are for those women”. This time I pulled over and stopped on the side of the road thinking about what to do. Now I was pretty sure, the clothes were for those women.

I turned around and headed back into the village. As I turned into the school everyone stood up and looked at me. I stopped and got out and nervously said, “Hi, what is every one doing?” One lady spoke up and said, “We are the teachers and mothers of the village and we have been praying and talking about how to keep our school open. The money the government is giving us each year is not enough.” She continued, “We are thinking about how to have a fundraiser, to maybe sell something.“

At that moment, I new why I had my vehicle full of clothes. I took a deep breath and choked back the tears as I told them what had happened to me that morning. I told them that I believed that God had heard their prayers before they had even asked. He had sent them clothes and nails for their fundraiser. By then the ladies were in tears too. I went back to the truck and took everything out, then one of them came up to me and poked me, then she turned to the other and said in Fijian, “He’s real”

They explained to me that the government gives them about $300 Fijian dollars ($150 U.S.) per year to run their school with 2 teachers and 240 children. As we sat I explained to them that there was about 800 pieces of clothing in all the bails. They were all so excited now that they would be able to sell in their own and nearby villages each item for around $0.75 each on average. This means they could raise enough funding from the nails and clothes to keep their school open for at least 4 more years. As I prepared to leave they said, “Could we sing a song for you?” so as I stood there with tears running down my face, they sang the most beautiful song and I am glad to be able to share it with you.

So the lesson I learned that day is.

When the path of someone truly in need has been guided to cross with yours, listen and do what you can to help.

Thanks

Ray

Boy with one leg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s w8HS9ReJw4

I was sharing this story with Meron while she was here and so here it is for the rest of you to enjoy.

We shipped over two 40 ft containers to Fiji and I flew over to unload and distribute them. On the morning of Feb,14 2002 I opened the containers and started to unload, when some of the villagers came by to help. I noticed a young guy maybe twenty or so with only one leg, the other was missing just below the knee. He had one crutch and he kept offering to carry the lighter stuff for me.

As we got further into the container a chrome hospital baby crib showed up, we carried it outside and set it aside to give to a hospital somewhere. The young man noticed that in the crib were some prosthetic legs and he came to me and asked quietly can I look at those legs and see if one might fit me? I said sure go ahead. I watched as he took all half dozen and went around behind the containers to try them on. One of his friends came back in a few minutes and asked if I had any tools they could borrow, so I gave them some.

A little side story, when we were loading this in Canada, Jackie and her cousin grabbed the crib to bring it in to the container and it was really heavy so they were going to take everything out of it but when they saw the legs, neither of them wanted to touch them so they just left them and dragged it in.

About an hour later I looked up and here was this young guy standing next to me. He said I found a leg and a pair of boots, how much do I owe you. I looked down and here he was standing next to me with the new leg on and a pair of new boots. I turned and said you don’t have to pay me anything, I am just glad you found one that fit. He said I had to mix and match a bit but I managed to make the perfect one.

Now if any of you are doctors out there, you should know what the odds of finding 6 used artificial legs in a pile and being able to make one fit perfectly is almost impossible,. I think getting hit by lightning is probably better odds.

Well the biggest smile came over his face and he said thank you so much, I have been saving money for several years now and I’ve only been able to save half. Then he said let me carry that bail of clothes and he did that for the rest of the day.

That day I realized that if this was the only good thing that came out of this trip it was worth every penny:)

Here is the video of that day, sorry I did not get any shots of this guy as he was quite shy and I am just plain clueless when it came to videoing stuff.

Thanks Again

Ray

School Reunion

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=IY B5deJZsIo

To begin with, I will give you some background so the stories that will follow will make sense.

As some of you know, I was born in Vancouver B.C. lived there till the age of 8 and then moved overseas till I was 18. We spent 4 years in the South Pacific, and then 6 years in Central America.

We moved back to Canada when war broke out between British Honduras (Belize) and Guatemala. We started a mechanical and body shop on the west coast of B.C in the small community of Bella Coola.

After less than two years I left the family business and became a dental assistant, for the next 18 months I traveled to most of the remote native communities along the B.C coast. Bella Bella, Klemtu or Kitasu, Ocean Falls and more, this was a real unique experience and I could tell you some amazing stories about flying into these communities in a small float plane.

I built my own log home in Bella Coola then sold it and moved to the interior of B.C. I got a job gold mining, in a little town called Likely. I have been mining ever since in the Yukon and B.C. with a few odd things in-between.

In 1994 I was sent an invitation to a school reunion in Fiji. I looked at it and decided I didn’t want to go. I felt I was way too busy making money. Jackie insisted that I should go because I had never stopped talking about the place where I had left my heart as a kid. I insisted that I was to busy. Well two days later Jackie had purchased a ticket to Fiji. She said, “I have a real strong feeling that you need to go”. Well I was a little upset but the next day I got on the plane and told myself it’s O.K., it’s only a few days. Well, my life was dramatically altered that week and has never been the same since.

When I landed in Fiji I got off the plane and rented a car and started off on the 3 hr left-hand side of the road drive around the island to Fulton College. I attended grade 6 at Fulton in 1973. My father had moved there to help build a new boy’s dorm.

When I reached the school, I parked and got out of the car and stood there for a moment then it hit me, a tidal wave of emotions that to this day are still washing over me. I stood by the car and listened to the people singing in church, and I realized that I had never really left this place, my heart was still there. This was a place where, as a child I was happy, a place where both of my parents were with me. Only a few months earlier my parents had reconciled after a year of separation in which I didn’t see my mother. A place where I could feel safe again, somehow I knew in my 9 year old mind that we were in a place so far away that neither of my parents could leave again.

The music of the South Pacific is something that touches the soul; if any of you have ever experienced it you will agree. I stood for a while and tried to stop crying before going in and sitting down. I wasn’t sure why I was so emotional at first, and then I realized that I had let twenty years go by thinking of only myself, and what I could get out of life. I had forgotten the true purpose for why we are placed on this earth.

Afterward, I went and sat quietly and thought about the days when I ran through the jungle, swung from the guava trees and ate mangos till my belly hurt. I thought about the day when I was sent to the white school 3 miles away, it wasn’t sociably acceptable in those days for a white kid to go to a native school. I remembered after five days of attending the white school I just stopped and snuck over to the native school and asked the teacher if I could stay. He asked me why, and I said, “This is where my friends are”. He said, “O.K. what’s your name?” At that time I was called Brian, my middle name, but I was scared my mom and dad would find out where I was, so I used my first name, Raymond and it’s been that ever since! My parents found out two days later, and my dad said, “if this is what you want its O.K. with me”. I was the first white kid to attend that primary school. I was lucky in Fiji as they taught in English. I was not so lucky when I did the same thing in the Kingdom of Tonga. I was the first and only white kid to attend the primary school at Beulah College and I had to learn Tongan, as they did not teach in English. I was so determined to go to school with my native friends I just learned it, (it wasn’t too hard, it only has 17 letters in the alphabet)

These were some of the best years of my life, running free, swimming and playing rugby. Sure I got a few beatings from the principle, it may be hard to imagine but I was not the best little kid on the island. I know that if Ritalin had been available in those days, they would have given me a double dose :) Even today, Jackie says she's tempted to put some in my hot chocolate :)

I found out years later that my dad had spoken to the principle of the Fijian school, Master Manu was a huge 6’5” 300 lb Tongan. Dad told him that he did not want the native kids to feel that because I was white, that I would be given any special treatment. Well the principle took him seriously, and I got more than my share of punishments. If you got any questions wrong on a test then the principle would take a small stick and rap you over the knuckles. If you were caught talking in class then it was a snap of the stick on the tip of the ear, ouch, I still feel it today. If you failed to do your homework then you were sent out to the bush after school to peel bark from a tree that was used for medicine, let me tell you not an easy job, I only went once.

Well there I was back in the South Pacific again, and I could not believe it, after 20 years, things had not changed much. The thing that hit me the hardest was the strong open racism by the whites towards the natives that still existed. The homes of the white teachers were air conditioned, they had running water, solar hot water systems on their roofs, they had their nice new cars shipped over from Australia and they still taught their kids separate from the natives. I could not believe it. The school library still had the same books that I had used as a kid. The food served to the kids was no different then when I was there, Cassava a bad tasting potato, maybe a sweet potato once and a while. The kids were still getting boils on their legs due to poor nutrition; let me tell you, I had my share of boils as a kid.

I walked down to see the small native home that my father insisted we live in when we were there. We were offered one of the houses for white people but my dad said no. I admire him to this day for his strong believe that we were all created equal, that he would not believe one thing and live another. Through his example he taught me more than anything he ever said. The home was worse now than when we lived there.

One of my friends Simione Nakasamai who had been in my dad’s mechanics class, told me that years later after we had left he became the mechanic and maintenance man for the school. He told me a story that made my blood boil. He said that one day a white teacher called him to fix a broken electric water pump that pumps water from a large rain barrel on the side of the house up to a small barrel on the roof so they could have running water in the house. Simi took the pump off and said he would try and fix it, the teacher didn’t want to wait and demanded that Simi go to town and purchase a new one immediately. Simi did just what he was told, however a few days later he took the old one apart and found the problem and repaired it. He decided to take it down to the home of a native teacher who only had a hand pump. It took this teacher more than an hour each morning to hand pump sufficient water for the day up on to the roof tank for his wife and 5 children. A few days after installing the electric pump for the native teacher, Simi was called into the office by the white teacher and asked what he had done with the broken pump. He explained what he had done, and was promptly told to remove it and put it in the spare parts room to be saved as a replacement for the white homes. Simi refused and was fired. He took his family and left the school to look for another job.

I could not believe things like this were still happening, how could people who were there as missionaries, treat the people they are supposed to help in this way. I was outraged. I vowed right then and there to see if I could help the people I loved, the people I consider my brothers and sisters, people who are no different than you and I. After spending a few more days there I returned home and told Jackie everything I had seen. I told her that we needed to help in what ever way we could. I said that I wanted to try and help the children there to get a better education.

I believed then, and now, that the only way to truly uplift anyone, is give them the tools to uplift themselves and one the best tools is education.

You see I didn’t get much education I barely made it to grade 9; maybe this is why I believe so strongly that education is the key to a better life, especially in third world countries. I cannot tell you how I struggled when I returned back to Canada due to my lack of education. For the first year I couldn’t even speak English well enough for people to understand me. As for my spelling, well all I can say is thank you, spell check.

I decided that I would try and set up an industry at each school and that I would try and do this the following year. Jackie said, “why next year, why not now”? So less than 3 months later we were back in Fiji and setting up a two sawmills.

This is what we have been doing now for the past ten years, setting up sawmills, a bakery, sending tractors for farming, replenishing libraries. We have distributed thousands of pounds of clothing, medical supplies and building materials. More than a million pounds of aid has been shipped since 1995.

By the way, my friend Simi did find another job; he works with me as President of Partners For Others Fiji. Since 1995 Simi, his wife Makalesi, and their three sons have helped distribute all the goods that we send, throughout the South Pacific.

Hopefully with this background in place I can continue to tell you individual stories with some video attached that will encourage and uplift.

I have found my purpose, the source of happiness, it’s not about me, it’s all about others.

Now you can listen to the music of the people that hold my heart.

Ray

hi ray

it seems to me that you have some extraordinary footage but might it make more impact/connections if it was edited with short stories telling viewer what to look for